Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Few weeks ago we made a trip to Cape Town. It was a fantastic journey where we not only enjoyed heights, sea and penguins but also long hour drive (16 hours) with only one of us driving all the way, interesting.. :). Trip is so long and there would be so much to cover that I might cover each day in a post. So be ready to read through 4 posts if you want to return from Cape Town...We started on 19th (Sep) evening from Johannesburg. There were 8 of us in a Volkswagen 8 seater. You can see 4 of us ready for this trip in photo on left (from left-Chandan, myself, Sudish, Nikhil and Bhushan, Sudish was helping us putting stuff in car as he ditched us by staying home all alone....or may be not alone???).Our formula one driver, Anand (right), took the driving seat and rest all of us were navigator trying to control steering wheel from back. Starting was boring as it was evening traffic on highway and it seemed like we would never get out of city. But hey, there our racer showed his expertise and took that closed side lane where few others were also going, may be after a lot of frustration. Wola! and we are out of city in no time and our car was racing towards Cape Town.. Oops.. correction, racing toward Knysna. Knysna, where our dare devils were planning to do bungee jumping.Beer cans were being opened in back, being passed to front (not to driver, we drive safe) and everyone was in a jolly mood. We stopped at side of road to get some fresh out of city air and prepare ourselves for a long stride. You can see rest of group in this photo on right (from left - Prityush, Anand, Chandan, Nikhil, Rajesh, Dinesh and myself, Bhushan is taking snap).

Slowly beer effect start taking place and few of us started feeling sleepy. I was also taking a nap as we would swap places for keeping our travel continue over the night. Our racer was in his full mood and there came a flash from nowhere... What happened!..something shiny was there..Hey! You have been clicked...(for over speeding)..What!..Bravo! Bravo!...Everyone started congratulating Anand for his first medal of driving. When it was all absorbed that speed was just above by 2-3 km/h only, cheering subsidised that he might not get anything for proof of it. Isn't it wonderful how much free you feel when in a joyful group.. That were us at that time, ready to take anything whatever it would cost... good to go :)

Now when sleep is away, we need to do something for passing time. What about Anthakshari (it is a game where you sing two line of a indian filmy song and whatever letter it ends, opposite party will sing a song starting from that letter). It have been long when anyone of us played this game. It was a total fun singing in full voice and whatever tune you could remember for a song. Sometime we don't even know full 2 line of song and still we make it look like we sang it.. a lot of time trying to repeat same song which have been used and being criticised by others for cheating.After about 6 hours when we stopped to fill gas, it was decided that I will navigate rest of way while Anand was not ready to leave his comfort seat. Ok, all other in back with full planing to sleep as better as possible and we two on front (left photo, you can see our car, is it good or good?). I tried to start our game again but could not succeed. After 2 attempt I also gave up. Me and Anand started talking about general topics to keep sleep away. We had only map in our hands for route and missing a singly point could mean a horrible night so we were sure to pay full attention.

We had already crossed 19th (it was over 1:00 in night). We succussfully identified our first diversion from beafourt to George and we were happy about it. This route was much deserted and as per map there would be many turns and joins of roads at turn from George to Knysna. Luckily we could spot few other direction boards saying George 350 KM. We are on right track. We kept our conversation going on the way.

It was about 3:00 and we were nearing George. Road went in between hills and we felt like going down the hill. And Wow... what a sight. All greenery (whatever we could see in that dark), hills on every side and a clean curved road in between with drop, looking like a black hole, at one side of road...amazing. It was just amazing. I was just wishing that we had come to this road at day time and enjoyed the view.

3:30 AM - We were crossing last hill on our way to George. As we reached on top of hill and around the corner, there it was - a fantastic view of lights from city with a heavy darkness surrounding it and making it more beautiful. It was surely a scenic view as we could see a spot for stopping and looking at it at ease. We woke everyone at back of car and as we were sure, each one was showing his feeling by a cry, Wow or a quick jump out of car. Nikhil was so enthusiastic to take a snap of this view that he got down of car without any slippers and not sure how did he manage to click camera while jumping all time due to a freezing cold ground.

We reached George near 4:00 AM. We had booked a self catering residence in Knysna for our stay and wanted to have a quick meal before we could do something else. Not sure about what we will get in Knysna, we stopped at a petrol pump for filling fuel and doing some shopping for eggs and bread. It was just not upto our satisfaction to keep going on muffins, fruits and juice for too long. Some bread with fried and spicy stuff is a must for us. Our path from George to Knysna was also quite scenic. It was a road along sea side with only few vehicles on the road. Here and there we saw few 60 KM speed signs and were asking Anand to keep those in mind and not try getting another snap from traffic department at a high cost. It was drizzling which made the whole view more like a movie scene. A curved road with hill on one side with greenery and sea on other side, making splashes, creating noise and time to time few birds chirping. Try imaging it and I am sure you could feel the happiness we were enjoying at that time.Continue to Next Post.........

Note: Please leave comments with your feedback on how you liked this trip. Am i making it interesting for you to read? what would you like to see more or change in it? I will appreciate if you can help me improve in my writting skills.